


Flowers for the Dead, Chocolate for the Living

by Sholio



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Holidays, IN SPACE!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 20:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16436111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Halloween in space.





	Flowers for the Dead, Chocolate for the Living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



They didn't get station leave very often, even in this new era of (alleged) peace, so a week on a station was a valuable thing. Even if this was a nowhere station at a jump point that wouldn't even rate its own station if not for its location on one of the new Cyteen trading routes now that they were (supposedly) not at war anymore.

From long experience, Ben knew what to expect when you got off on these backwater stations. Echoing, unpainted docks, always a few degrees too cold with a few chancy-looking seals, leading into a strip of businesses selling the various goods that spacers wanted -- booze, sex, media, holos. Oh, sure, the exact layouts varied, and things had gotten a little more diverse and interesting in this new era of post-(we hope)-war prosperity, but there were still certain expectations you had for a place like this.

This ... wasn't it.

"Uh, we miss an announcement about some kind of emergency?" Sal said uncertainly.

The docks themselves were fairly normal, if perhaps a little dimly lit (not uncommon in these edge-of-nowhere stations), but the closer they got to the businesses sprawling out from beyond the nearest section-seal, the weirder things looked. The lights were down, and it wasn't even halfway through mainday, Ben _knew_ that, because he never got off on a strange station without checking how ship-time and local time synced up. What lighting there was, was mostly orange or violet, giving an eerie hue to everything. Not emergency colors Ben knew, but hell, all these different places had their own way of doing things.

But the businesses themselves were decked out in strange ways, too. Holographic skeletons, eerily grinning orange globes with leering faces, bright explosions of color (flowers, those were flowers - not real ones, he hadn't seen any in awhile but he knew that much), and even a bunch of skulls decorating the front of what looked like a freakin' _pet store_ \-- had they walked into some kind of quarantine situation? Fucking Graff, he was supposed to keep on top of things like this! The only thing keeping him from panicking entirely was that the locals didn't look worried, but they also didn't look exactly normal, because if _those_ were the local fashions, then count him right the fuck _out_ \--

"Oh, it's _Halloween!"_ Meg said suddenly, and she turned and gave Dek a dazzling grin. He grinned back, while the two former Belter kids just looked at them blankly.

"It's what, now," Ben said. He didn't like things he didn't understand. Which was, admittedly, a whole lot of things to do with his inner-system crewmates. This was clearly some sort of insystem thing, but you weren't supposed to get insystem weirdness out here, damn it. At least Sal looked equally baffled; there was some small comfort in that.

"Halloween!" Meg exclaimed. "Dek, you know what I'm talking about, right?"

"Candy, costumes, pranks, scary stories?" Dekker said.

"Eating so much sugar you want to puke," she said, and the two of them grinned at each other with the kind of doofy expressions that made Ben regret every last one of his life choices, especially the ones involving these two lunatics.

"So, what, you guys didn't do Halloween on R2?" Dek asked, taking in his crew's skeptical expressions.

"Uh, _no?"_ Sal made a quick gesture: _crazy._

"I guess I didn't really think about it," Meg said. "I mean, I was out there long enough to notice ... it just wasn't on my scanners at the time. You guys didn't really do holidays at all."

"No profit in it," Ben said.

"Oh, there were things on Helldeck," Sal said, waving a hand. "You know. Folks out from insystem, they're gonna do what they're gonna do. And the religious types ... I mean, you _want_ to find yourself someone who's fasting or partying, they'd take over a bar or sleepery for their celebrations all the time."

Fleet ships were much the same -- no official holidays, but no one was going to stop a few crew members who wanted to slip off for an informal observation of whatever was appropriate to their culture. Ben had picked up the broader points of a few by osmosis, but it wasn't something he cared about. Maybe they had to get to you young, and the Institute hadn't bothered with that nonsense.

"I can't believe they're still doing Halloween all the way out here," Dek said, looking around with a kid-in-a-candy-store expression that was way too young-looking for a guy who'd started going salt-and-pepper a few years ago. But then, Dek had a way of doing that. It was one of many irritating things about him.

"You folks are off that carrier that just came in, right?" a woman called to them. Her face was painted eerily white and black, and bones were painted right down the front of her black shirt and pants, like a skeleton showing through from underneath that glowed faintly under the violet lights. "Where you in from?"

"Pell!" Meg called back. She laughed, actually _laughed_ , and pulled at Dek's hand, drawing him forward. "Is this Halloween?"

"It's called Dead Days," the woman told her. "Have you any you've lost?"

Dekker was the one who said, quietly, "Who doesn't?"

"No one," the woman said. "That's why we take this mainday and alterday to celebrate being alive." She reached into the bag she carried over her arm and brought out a hand clutched around something that she thrust at Meg. "Take these from us, and please, come and celebrate with us, strangers." And she shoved a fistful of whatever-it-was into Meg's hands and slipped off into the brightly dressed, festival-going locals.

"These people are crazy and we're leaving before they kill and eat us," Ben declared.

"But there's candy, though. I'm not sure if it's completely synthetic." Meg held out her cupped hands. Dek and Sal each took one. The candies were decorated like little skulls, which was more than enough to make Ben pass, _thank you and had everyone else lost their minds._

"It's chocolate," Sal groaned orgasmically.

"... Real chocolate?" Ben asked, curious despite himself. He'd only had it a couple of times, back before the war really kicked off and you couldn't get Earth luxury goods out here for love or money.

"Well ... no, but not a bad imitation. They got the aromatics right." As former smugglers, both Meg and Sal were good at picking up on the finer points of ersatz goods. "Kady? Gimme another."

"Where d'you think we could get more of this?" Dek asked.

"I'm thinking face paint first," Meg said, looking around. "We gotta fit in, you know."

"No," Ben said. "No, and also no. I'm not walking around on a strange station, even a backwards one, looking like a clown. Especially when it's full of possible cannibals."

"Shut up and be nice about the local stupid customs, Ben, and there'll be a reward in it for you later," Sal said through a mouthful of ersatz chocolate, and stepped on his foot.

"Only because there's chocolate in it for you now," he muttered, but he took one of the skull candies anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> So the idea here is that they've combined garbled versions of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos into one holiday.


End file.
